"agonies" poems
Happiness bought off agonies
to prolong its life span just for a spur of moment,
agony's ear-deafening silence spoke,
prolong happiness is an ailment in its own way,
you'll die in happiness just by showing me a deceptive ray!
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 9:50 AM UTC
Stumbling into ancient scripts, authored a decades plus ago,
ago being a modifier of time quantities, minute or large, unspecific
without an objective adjective additive, that faucets a stream of an interlocutory elocution of a batter of rooted emotional histories,
but not histrionics
fanciful words for dredged up memories, acute, but tarnished,
powered yet worn by a cousin of ago, a/k/a,
age
and yet
renews as of,
at this very second, as if it were a first, a tumult of visions, swelling of remembrances, embodied scars, and I weep anew but not
for me, as much for the resonating simpatico souls with whom
they even now vibrate with resonance of the immediacy of
If not now, When?
Aside: The exterior environment is noisy wet pelting of thunderstorms and ****** sheets of bulleting rain, piercing projectiles, but I am safe in the sunroom, sadly happy my dog is no longer here to shiver and tremble, cuddle and be soothed by steady stroking
But I am here, wrestling with this dredging operation, digging up
tons of sand that require dumping, and I ask, inquire, beg:
Who will take this detritus off my hands, once more, now uncovered,
now recovered, the soil is already soaked and can absorb no more,
the soul is already soaked and can absorb no more, the weakened
heart, damaged and occluded, suffer cannot bare twice the
outrageous misfortune
of unbared recollections, twice, or thrice, and I feel myself drowning in revisiting pain, **** **** **** these old poems, not nuggets, but boulders dropping from night skies, shot from a pitching machine, without letup, piercing of agonies that once ago
freshly desecrated and decorated my basic training in humanity.
Enough whining:
*I wrote those poems to
eject out those pains,
and I write this now, once more,
to realize that so so many still face
uncertain and unrelenting similarities,
doing their own sums,
and I wish them easing,
strength to compose and
thereby dispose of
the ineloquent
and eloquent
words of staining suffering*
3:30am
Thur
July 10
2025
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 5:39 PM UTC
When out of a clear sky, the bright
Sky over Japan, they tumbled the
death of light,
For a moment, it's said, there was
brilliance sword-sharp,
A dazzle of white, and then dark.
Into the cavernous blackness, as
home to hell,
Agonies crowded; and high above
in the swell
Of the gentle tide of the sky, lucid
and fair,
Men floated serenely as angels
disporting there.
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why a poet?
because a poet
hears the words
which sing the
purest harmonies
because a poet
paints their portraits
in pastels
of phrases
because a poet
dances their agonies
into leaps of faith
and pirouettes
of passion
because a poet
sees
the beauty
in the commonplace
and captures
the moment
in a snapshot
of ink and white
because a bloodless world
cuts itself
a thousand times
and the poet bleeds
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 7:07 PM UTC
Search. Search. Seek. Seek.
Cold. Cold. Clear. Clear.
Sorrow. Sorrow. Pain. Pain.
Hot flashes. Sudden chills.
Stabbing pains. Slow agonies.
I can find no peace.
I drink two cups, then three bowls,
Of clear wine until I can’t
Stand up against a gust of wind.
Wild geese fly over head.
They wrench my heart.
They were our friends in the old days.
Gold chrysanthemums litter
The ground, pile up, faded, dead.
This season I could not bear
To pick them. All alone,
Motionless at my window,
I watch the gathering shadows.
Fine rain sifts through the wu-t’ung trees,
And drips, drop by drop, through the dusk.
What can I ever do now?
How can I drive off this word —
Hopelessness?
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he walks alone; faking a smile
deep within are pairs of agonies
grief, distraught; but still he smiles
walking down the pavement, he stops
turning around are unfriendly friends
they wave at him; camouflaging a smile
he looks away and continues
He has moved thus far, still no one
he hears the birds chipping; the cats crying and water falling
the queen of the night's flower arouse him; bringing him to a rush of impulse and pleasure, but still he wanders
they have stabbed him twice; his closest pals
they set him up; they slander him behind the scene and still rush to.him with cold hands
he has decided to stay firm; a man of his own- to walk through the valley alone; A Beautiful Loner.
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 5:59 AM UTC
A SOCIETY WRITTEN IN FLAMES; SHROUDED IN DARKNESS
*The tears flows in an endless way
Bemoaning the days of yore
Watching with eyes that sparks red,
Sunken and beaten from the tragedies of yore
Helpless and wishing for a relentless call
As tragedy hits her most sensitive part,
Bemoaning the tides,
All her days of glory,
Now a shadowy story*
*She had been ***** by her very own,
The children she yearned and bled for,
The men she fed and trained,
Where her rain fell full and vast, to soothe their hearts
Where she gave it all, and smiled, hoping that someday, they will realize her sacrifices and sleepless nights,
Her nights of terror and horrors
Where she stood in the midst of the stormy eerie night, shrouded in darkness*
*It was her ******* they ****** and clunged to,
It was her arms that shielded them from the shadows of the dark,
But when they grew and flew,
She waited still
Praying and wishing they would remember the days of yore*
*Then the dark hour rolled away,
And when morning came, it was harrowing.
It was harrowing how she waited abandoned and dejected,
As her sons and daughters peaked at the sky,
Trampling her down,
Relegating and belittling her
Painful it were, as she cried from the agonies of the days of yore,
Where she laid all her virtues down,
Giving it all to see her children smile,*
*It is this dejection that has brought her to tears,
It is this wickedness of a child to a mother, that has made her weep endlessly
It is this tragedy that have swallowed her glory,
As her children keeps flying above huddles, in peace and harmony,
Forgetting her,
It is this callousness, that pushed them to sapping her virtues and enriching themselves with it thereon*
*What is worse than a child abandoning his mother?
It is this penchant, that drives them
It is the love of greed,
It is the seed of corruption,
It is not an inherited trait,
It is a despicable decision
Like a monstrous shadow,
Twirling the back of the night.
It is the fire that burns within their heart,
The fire to **** steal and destroy
To take what she can never give again
To live,
To live big at the expenses of others sorrow and agony
It is this evil that has perused Nigeria and has rendered her a roaming wretch
And now tragedy looms,
It booms and blooms,*
A society written in flames
Who will save MOTHER NIGERIA?
Ovi Odiete© 2016, Oct. 31
All rights reserved
Note
Children here signifies the evil politicians and men that has sapped our country dry with their evil penchant
Oct 31, 2016
Oct 31, 2016 at 7:03 AM UTC
to more than I can be...
a sad isolated man,
throes of an agonizing,
stretched by her for painful
revengeful gain,
kissed with pointless avarice, divorce.
children deeming
him alienating, his faulty
insensitive sensitivities,
to easy blame
little do they know of the
piercing lowliness, the looniness of
nights he listened to sad-eyed singers,
and his late-of-mid of night scribbled scripts,
where he
off loaded the agonies of a midlife
disaster, not entirely of his-own
sown making,
but still his to bear and bare alone...
some accidents happens for unintentional,
unintended intentional new seasons appear,
stumbled, tumbled, fumbled his way onto
this H~oly P~lace, where someone might listen
to his explanations, expiations, excoriations
of his all too common tragedy, and said:
this broken human, he's got his reasons,
read his overly long treatises, his entreaties,
to those that prowl, rowing, in this corner
of the silence of the internet, where only the
trolls, the cold, the easier to-be-meaner oft thrive,
and found none of that, but an oasis of sheltering,
embracing comforting, those who actually admitted
his writings could be loved, and perhaps the writer
himself, was
deserving
of a second chance, a verbal embrace. a rereading forgiveness,
a pat
on his natback, a sympathetic sensory intaking,
and perhaps-this debt, eternal, that put the
for and the fore in a new baby born, named -
new forever
came into existence
the very same
e
that begins those conjoined words
***e~ternally grateful
"and now I sleep in peace when the day is done"
but the night time
is still the
write time
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 11:42 AM UTC
Night approached us, with a full moon.
I began to cry, and you to laugh.
Your contempt was a god, and my whinings,
a chain of doves and minutes.
Night left us. Crystal of pain
you wept for distant depths.
My sadness was a cluster of agonies,
over your fragile heart of sand.
Morning joined us on the bed,
our mouths placed over the frozen jet
of a blood, without end, that was shed.
And the sun shone through the closed balcony,
and the coral of life opened its branch,
over my shrouded heart.
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Healing like the moon, you,
and jilted like the night am I:
paired in the heavens,
my darkness to your dream;
A cloud-patch of the downpour, you,
and I, a moment of the wait:
our meeting was written for this year;
The only passway:
your name,
the beat I live by.
*Dressed in a bandhni pair,
leaving my father's lane will I come,
for you bringing,
sixteen monsoons together:
hold soft, for the string is sharp
for now starts the journey of seven lives;*
I, at this end of the string
and you the other:
many the agonies before they come together!
The only passway:
your name,
the beat I live by.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 4:22 PM UTC
For answering my call, despite not being free
For staying up late, giving up on your sleep,
For listening to my stories, not batting an eyelid
For singing to me, as I'd welcome my dreams!
For how you'd hold me close amidst friends, and beam
For how you've thanked every waiter who has served us a meal
For that first kiss you planted on my forehead in glee
For wiping my tear which trickled down, after some movie!
For noticing the pimple that caused a blemish on my cheeks -
And yet making me believe that I was still queen!
For how when you hug me and make me daydream
For how your eyes still look at me and brightly gleam!
For the silly misunderstandings on that Valentine's eve,
For the times you forgave and the mistakes you let be -
For respecting my choices and being with me
For the happiness you brought in, as agonies were forced to leave!
For thinking beyond the barriers of caste and creed -
For the patience shown as I kept testing if you would ever flee,
For bringing back faith and offering a love - in which I could believe
For teaching me that as we give back, more in abundance we receive!
Nov 18, 2011
Nov 18, 2011 at 10:39 AM UTC
The wobbly love bits
woke up when the morning is
still fogged by cold purple-hued
freshness
She covers her face
but reveals those baby eyes
to follow you with
mirthful wonder
and she flails her wobbly fingers
and wobbly arms
with playful waves
and her mother
takes away her blankie
And she is dressed in
blue, and that sort of
beauty all crammed inside
that little brand new human being
can be quite
overwhelming
Her few feather hairs
and happiness-crinkling eyes
and mouth in a laughing sort of circle
and her invisible neck
and super puff-loved
cheeks
And love-hearts
fill the air
and spread joy
though your bones
and nerves
like warm sunshine
that melts
yesterday's despair
and dissipates
all the tiny
agonies
within
her radius.
-To Alice
Jan 7, 2016
Feb 15, 2016
Feb 15, 2016 at 10:25 PM UTC
.
*… and the look of fear
co-existing with pain
on a contorted face
that knows
it is in mortal difficulty,
as ragged fingers
clutch,
clutch,
at a fire they cannot reach,
ripping agonies react,
to an enforced cardiac episode,
as blackness closes in
gravity heaves its hardest,
but the fall is fake,
a red herring in the event,
and the weight of the world
presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,
presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,
as breath is given freedom
in exhalation to the light,
that slowly rolls back
the pitch hue of the void,
returning back images,
feeling,
a new belief,
and the fire inside quietens,
and the fire inside quietens,
to the intense glow
of a burnt aching heart.*
© Pagan Paul (2018)
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 5:45 AM UTC
I'm reading poetry at the cremation ghat
amid chanting of God's name
while ferrying and burning the dead.
The noise unsettles me a bit
as sets me thinking of my own death
that by all means seems closer than farther.
Yet I get the relieving feel
reading poems would heal
all the agonies of my flesh
and take me to that spiritual level
where I would take death as
passing into another dimension.
I'm not much of a religious person
but have always felt devoted to my kindred
seeking transcendence through them.
The best thing I'm hoping right now
is when I burn
someone would amid chanting of God's name
read poetry at the burning ghat.
Aug 24, 2016
Aug 24, 2016 at 4:49 AM UTC
Yesterday,
Tender pursuits
Ordered
by shortened expression
And personal amusement.
Pleasure was channeled
by uncanny imagination.
Ignorance was developed
with years
of sheltered nurture.
Endeavors were focused
Through heartened dreams
Waiting eternities to age.
Today,
Life is starved of dignity,
Lead by the breath of humanity,
And trailed by my past.
Kindness overshadowed
by needless mockery.
Confidence diminished
Through thoughtless faults.
Purity saturated
with uncertain willingness.
Competence choked
from the flairs of society.
Tomorrow,
Independence is a necessity
Steered by Today,
Speckled by yesterday.
Motivation should dictate
my verdicts,
And challenge perils.
Agonies lifted
Through sanguinity
Virtue grown
Only through praise
From the satisfaction of many.
Yesterday, today, tomorrow
Immersed in today
Is the root of my future.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 9:41 AM UTC
David-sculpture Eros' wings
Lovelorn youth in search of Spring
his only hope in traveling
a peace from broken promising
poetry's earth-shattering sage
magic an optimistic stage
Loveless : puppet to self-worth,
Lovelorn still has yet to learn.
Love defends as guilt will fight
lessons of fires and appetite
Loveless is insatiable to hide
new ecstasy festooned with pride
Loveless will wail and cry
Lovelorn wakes free to fly
learning that love is self sacrifice
yin and yang so prophesied:
gifts to waking minds sublime
all seeds are sown in fields of time...
As Loveless screams his agonies
wide eyes drool over magazines
Lovelorn runs piningly
for more to always feel at rest,
for something golden as the sun
Loveless could care less,
empty having none
defeated before having won?
Love defends as guilt will fight
Both will weep when they see the light...
Tears from Less will burn regret
'Lorn lets flow to Openness
peace of mind knows happiness
both alone yet never so
and when two meet
as One will teach :
burying all the misery,
both similar with their sorrows
all must wake up now--tomorrow.
Alone or less, love will be
found in fields of dreams that sing
David-sculpture / Eros' wings.
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 12:37 AM UTC
They talk of short-lived pleasure--be it so--
Pain dies as quickly; stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of pain to cease:
Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness;
Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes--did it keep
A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.
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I've been where you are
In the darkness
Filled with night lights
Sweet liquors and scents
That dull the ache
Distracting you from your heart:
The heart that you hate
For loving someone far from reach.
I've felt the agonies
Of misunderstandings
When my words could not be heard,
And my soul remained unseen
Because I was drowning
In my own lies and stories:
Falling from my own heights,
A million miles above the crowds.
I've walked this path
That you're dragging yourself on.
I've held the hand
Of self-betrayal in a dark room
And wondered if I'd make it:
Til morning... til the light came.
I've been the one screaming,
Everyone thinking I'm laughing;
I've been the broken one.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 8:40 AM UTC
Man is born unto the rainbow of opportunity.
The dazzling palate before him as he draws his first infant breath.
Perfect and untainted, this tiny being as he enters this vast world.
His only purpose being his very existence.
The sheer wonder of this colourful land in which he finds himself.
A world of moments, of sounds.
Of touch and scents.
Of visual exploration through those eyes that have yet seen no horror.
Skin that has yet to feel physical pain.
Soft and unspoilt as he nurses close to his mother.
Skin not yet a fortress behind which he will hide many ills.
A skin that will learn to shrivel in shame.
Harden in the face of fear, like armour.
And wilt in the absence of love.
Bloom turning from rosy red to sepia.
For though man is born unto the rainbow.
The horror of humanity is diligent on his heel.
It’s hulking cape of blackness, angst and despair.
As man destroys all he has been given in nature.
Turning his hand then against his fellow species.
Born into a roiling sea of corruption, control and greed.
Where the myriad of healing greens,
Of mysterious purples and creative oranges, lost forever.
Their brilliance fading like an aged tapestry in sunlight.
Turning to browns and greys.
Leaching their beauty through a lifetime.
Until there becomes only blackness.
Until his is the dark heart of despair.
Bleached and brittle like driftwood on a desolate beach.
Washed up and empty.
The human condition and its agonies too much to bear.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC
We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world,
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.
W.B. YEATS
* * * * * *
My soul looked down from a vague height, with Death,
As unremembering how I rose or why,
And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
And pitted with great pocks and scabs of plagues.
Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire,
There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled.
It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs
Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.
By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
Round myriad warts that might be little hills.
From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,
And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.
(And smell came up from those foul openings
As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)
On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,
Brown strings, towards strings of gray, with bristling spines,
All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.
Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns,
Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.
I saw their bitten backs curve, loop and straighten.
I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.
Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,
I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.
And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, bur crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head
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I had received the request
Thing I am used to process
But now it was quite different
For he was only three years old
*** testing commonly for adults
Who usually take risky behaviors
As sharing needles and multiple ***
But no not this innocent angel so fragile
The boy smiles as he looked at me
Seemed quiet when I extracted blood
I expect nothing serious for this a test
A requirement for a foreign adoption
Yet my heart was in a silent pain
When the result turns *** reactive
I retested it more than three times
But reality unveil the truth at hand
The poster mum was sadden
As she hopes the boy will find
A home with parents so kind
With future safe and secure
The silent pain surges inside
This conscience as witness
To all the agonies suffered
By those infected with ***
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 4:47 AM UTC
lord, I ask you—make him good for me,
give him courage; make him mine
and in the meantime, let me dream sweetly
of feverish summers, him and his eyes
please do not deepen my agonies,
do not blacken them
make my agonies of beauty,
silky and sunlit with peonies,
birds singing, my mother laughing
because how will I stand yet another
bad dream about him?
please do not deepen my agonies,
do not blacken them
if you will not give me him, give me beauty
spat out of your mouth, warmed by your hands
I shall love it as if it were a lover
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 8:02 AM UTC
Its the little things they say
That makes our lives complete
Little thoughts-little deeds
That small gesture ...
.....offering up a seat
To someone you see in need
And the smile you get
Offer accepted or refused
That says "Thanks friend...
...that helped to raise my spirit
That the day had abused
Maybe some small gift you get
Just to let you know
Not only are you appreciated
We wished to make sure and tell you so
Its those little smells
That can raise titanic memories
And those little angry words
That can dredge up titanic agonies
Its those little bitty battles
Fought with nasty little words
That leave those little tiny scars
You get from hearing what you heard
Its just a little color
On a grey and dreary day
That can take some gigantic problem
And just melt it all away
Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 at 7:40 PM UTC
Lightly colored with painted kisses, humming harmonious hymns:
The vital branches of our tree, such strength, unblighted!
Your charity sustains me, the manna of my muse,
Do you feel my fingertips as they glide across your cheek,
My palm on your chin, your eyes upturned they settle and seize my attention.
Stay not your caress, though in between us there may be a veil.
Serpents in the short grass will not strike you as you pass,
I've paid them for your safe passage, come to me, I crave only your touch.
Here, let us only touch each other,
No more is needed now, but skin, and silence,
Let the wind carry away all pains and past sorrows.
With your touch my agonies dissolve
like a sweet treat in a moist mouth.
With confidence I shrug off past limitations,
Celebrations are even now being held in the core of my being.
Your smiling spirit sends sympathetic vibrations when I am away.
Restored are the comforts of past days,
Eiderdown and slow burning sage,
Before I knew your words were ever for me
I fell deeply in love with your melodies.
If I could, in my deepest passion prove the power of your touch
It would mean so much if you could understand.
Like an assembled host of mighty magicians focused in concert
Your hands work epic miracles, of soothing and creation.
In the course of my rambles
I have stumbled
On sigils and symbols
That have granted me a second sight
And from you I see waves of light,
In mingled colours sharply detailed patterns
Of magnificent artistry,
An aura of delightful pageantry
That reveals your unparraleled self to me.
Entrusted with the formula for happiness,
I share this willingly with the hope you'll see,
All I need to wake each day,
is the nearest hope that we shall spend a moment together,
So in touching, we may impart the many words left unsaid,
The truths that would shatter our lips should we utter them.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 2:39 PM UTC